


The Ghosts of Winterfell

by 1146TheMarshal1219



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, I know the footage won't even feature, Inspired by a Trailer, One Shot, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Canon, Ramsay is His Own Warning, Sansa Arya and Jon please don't die, Sansa's ghost in the crypts of Winterfell, Yeah I know its probably just a teaser, but this came to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 21:27:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17433824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1146TheMarshal1219/pseuds/1146TheMarshal1219
Summary: Sansa's ghost stands before her statue in the Crypts of Winterfell and hears a dreaded voice behind her.GRRM owns it all not written for profitOh I read that back in October ms Turner discussed these statues cause not in the show at all. Its just a teaser trailer folks #dontpanic





	The Ghosts of Winterfell

Sansa stood before the statues at the end of the crypt of Winterfell. She stood before the stone images of her sister and brother and herself. "What happened to us Jon, Arya. Why can I not remember, why have I returned here now, why am I here alone without your spirits beside me?"

Sansa stretched out her hand once again and watched her fingers pass through the stone of her statue. Thus did she know she was a ghost, where were her brother and sister though. Had Bran survived to raise these monuments to them. "We must have won the War for Dawn and the war with Cersei, for someone must hold Winterfell who loved or respected us enough to raise these statues. Why can I not remember the end though, my death. What happened to us."

"What does it matter wife, the important thing is you've come back to me and your still young and beautiful." A dreaded voice spoke from behind Sansa, a voice full of venom. "It doesn't matter that you can't remember how you died. The fact I remember how I died ought to be enough for both of us."

Sansa slowly turned and there stood Ramsay with a look of the most dreadful hatred on his face. She stepped back from him trying not to show him the fear that rose up from her gut, should she even feel fear of him as a ghost she thought even as terror took hold. She had feared him so much in life so why not in death. "What can you do to me Ramsey, you are just a ghost same as I. I have no need for fear of you. Leave me be."

"No need for fear Sansa." He smiled that smile she remembered so well from before the start of each rape, each beating. "I am indeed a ghost the same as you. While you lived I had to watch you and your bastard brother lord it over my castle and could do nothing to you. You were too stupid even to feel my prescience around you and let me so much as haunt you, now you're going to be mine again."

He moved in right in front of her grabbing her right wrist and squeezing hard, twisting her arm and making her cry out. "Oh did that hurt you wife, dear sweet Sansa are you in pain. Ghosts your about to find out can be hurt most dreadfully. I can also rip this pretty dress off and get a good look at you ghostly body, see how many of my cuts still show, then fuck you every way I choose. I've been fucking Myranda to pass the time for months now..." He smirked at her. "Ah yes Myranda is still here as well, can you imagine how pleased she is going to be to see you. You're going to find out that forever is a very long and painful time."

Sansa felt herself almost collapse inside wanting to scream an him to let her go. The wolf in her though told her that she was already dead and Ramsay could not kill her again. He was holding her right wrist Sansa went for the hilt of the dagger that was sheathed at his side. "You will..."

Ramsay slapped her hard, hard enough to knock her to the crypt floor her wrist still locked in a grip like iron. She screamed at the pain as her arm was near dislocated from her shoulder it seemed. "There's a pretty sound I've missed, your screams, why my darling Sansa are you going to fight me. Won't that be fun...."

"Bolton I've fucking told you not to come in here." Another voice suddenly broke through Sansa's pain she looked up and saw a six foot tall bearded man with greying black hair standing behind Ramsay. He had the look of a Stark about him a sight that filled Sansa with hope.

"My lord please help me..." She began to beg looking up at this new spectre whoever he was he was a man of her House surely he would save her from a Bolton.

"Oh yes help her like the noble fellow you are." Ramsey's smile had gone and was there a trace of fear in his voice Sansa wondered. "Oh introductions are in order I suppose. Sansa this is your ancestor King Brandon Stark one of many I know this one however is Brandon the Bad. I suppose your just an unlucky lady. Brandon this is my lady wife Sansa Bolton who I'll be taking out of here to do with as I will. Though if it might stop this antagonism you feel for me I'll hold her down and you can have a go with her before we leave. She is a beauty isn't she what do you say?"

"Aye she is at that but I'm Brandon the bad not Brandon the raper you Bolton bastard." The King of Winter looked down at Sansa appraisingly and spoke to her. "You don't have the look of my House but I recall a red haired girl who'd come to play in here with Eddard's children, at least I think they were his. Was that you lady, are you my kin?" 

"I am your grace, I am Sansa of House Stark daughter of Eddard and Catelyn Stark. My statue stands behind me." Gods Sansa wondered why was there never a true knight to hand when she was in trouble it near always had to be some brutal man. Still better a Stark tyrant than a Bolton bastard. "Please my kinsman you must know this beast of a Bolton means to torment me cruelly, save me from him I beg you!"

"Your grace she calls me indeed what have things come to." Brandon reached over his shoulder and drew the ghost of Ice from its sheath. "Your 'wife' wants naught to do with you it seems, she will stay here safe with me Bolton, you should bugger off or die again."

"Well if you insist old man have her, I can see why you'd want her to yourself." Ramsay let go off Sansa's arm and the freed hand began to drift towards the second dagger Ramsay wore on the back of his belt. "You'll not enjoy it much I fear for you'll find she's completely frigid, though perhaps you Stark's like your women ice cold, just lying under you crying...." 

As Ramsay drew the knife Brandon threw Ice in the air to Sansa's astonishment and caught the swords blade in his gauntleted hands as it came down. As Ramsay lunged there was a loud crunch as Brandon the Bad swung the sword round and drove one of the cross-guards straight through the side of Ramsay's skull above his ear. He twisted it and pulled it out and Ramsay crashed to the floor of the crypt almost on top of Sansa, then became a cloud of white mist and was gone.

"Is he.... Is he dead.... Destroyed your grace." Sansa somehow managed to stammer out aware that she was now alone with a King of Winter of the most dreadful reputation. "Am I safe from him forever?"

"No lady you are not." The king replied as he offered her his hand and easily drew her back to her feet. "Time just goes by here in the dark and I know no count of days, a moons turn or so though and he'll have brought himself back together. That's the eighth time I've killed him or maybe the ninth."

"Why did you not just cut him down with your sword your grace." Sansa rubbed at her shoulder hoping it would not take a moons turn for her pain to go away. "Would that not have been surer?"

"I had not yet killed him with the murder stroke and tis a long time since I last heard Ices cross guard crunch through bone." He sheathed the blade and laid a great but gentle hand upon hers on her shoulder. "You'll not have this pain for long lady Sansa, one of the advantages of our state, also you need not call me aught but Brandon, I have not been a king for what seems an endless count of years." 

"Then you should just call me Sansa." She moved a little away from her statue into the side corridor where stood a stone bench for the comfort she supposed of those who came to pay respects to her. "Every time he restores himself he will come straight here for me. If he kills you does that mean he will have me for a moons turn till you can come and rescue me?"

"If he drags you from here you are his forever, for I have an iron sword in my statues hands to bind my spirit to these crypts, your statue does not ." Brandon shrugged as he sat down beside her. "But that Bolton scum will not kill me."

"When were these statues put here do you remember." Sansa asked him looking back at herself in stone. "Do you know what happened to me, for I cannot recall my death. Why is that Brandon?"

"They were not put up long ago I feel, all three appeared together and as for other things I am not one of these Maester's. Some spirits recall their deaths others do not perhaps it is as a mercy. Ghosts bear not the wounds that slew them to give clues. All I know Sansa is that from your fair appearance you died tragically young."

"It would seem so...." Sansa looked harder at the statues. "My sister Arya is aged as she should be, my brother Jon looks older than us. Perhaps he has just died and my nephew the new Lord of Winterfell has raised them?"

"Perhaps." Brandon laughed. "Or perhaps if all were worked by different hands his face was carved by the worst sculptor. Mine looks little like me for I doubt my heirs wasted much coin on it or cared much for correctness of its likeness, they were just glad to put me in the ground. When people come to mourn we will listen to what they say and you may gain your answers, if they call you and Arya aunt and he father you will know."

"But I have so many questions though and unless they discourse on history here....." Sansa looked across at the rugged ancient king he was much handsomer that the cruel faced statue that topped his tomb. "Why is just my spirit here and not my brother and sisters?"

"Perhaps they did not die in sight of Winterfell, for if they died any distance from here they will not haunt this castle even if their bones are here. Or as likely they went straight to their long halls of rest." Brandon tentatively placed a hand on Sansa's which were folded in her lap. "Before you ask the spirits of the dead who do not pass over do not always walk the castle. Some sleep in their tombs only coming out from time to time. This is your first time so you are confused, also you should not need to ask if I have seen your father, mother aunt or uncles they are at rest or far from here." 

"Oh if they are at rest it is a pity that I cannot speak to them but a blessing that they are." Sansa looked down at Brandon's hand on hers. "What did you do to be known as Brandon the bad? I asked my Septa and was told tales of you were not suitable for a ladies ears when I was learning the names and order of the Kings of Winter. You do not seem to me to be a bad man."

"Oh I was a monstrous Tyrant Sansa, but years almost beyond count guarding this crypt may have mellowed me." He squeezed her hand lightly. "Or perhaps having a beautiful woman to speak to has had an effect upon me."

"Well that is good then I suppose." Sansa wondered if she was about to be propositioned. Did it matter he could not get her with child. Why though did it always have to be thus.

"How came you to be married to that Bolton?" Brandon asked her. "I presume it was after your father died in the south for no Stark would have given a true born daughter to a Bolton's bastard."

"The Bolton's had Winterfell and I took the advice of a foolish man, who told me if I won Roose Bolton's son's heart I might turn him against his father and retake it." Sansa hoped ghosts could not blush as she looked away biting her lip. "I suppose I was a fool also for believing I could do it. We did not know he was a monster, how were we to know that given a gentle beautiful lady for wife he would do nought but rape and torture her. Having no desire at all to have my love just wanting to break me into pieces."

"Is that what the bastard did to you." Brandon tightened his grip on her hands but then released them once more. "I have been letting him die again too easily I will take my time in future."

"I avenged myself on him eventually. He kept a pack of fearsome hounds, which he used to hunt women and to whom he fed prisoners he did not flay. I fed them with him....He died screaming while I watched."

Brandon's booming laughter filled the crypt. "By the gods you are a Stark. Tell me lady was he the only man you ever knew." Sansa nodded silently. "If you would know a true man you need only ask me."

"Do such romances between ghosts happen often Brandon." Sansa replied tentatively feeling no particular desire to know any man anymore. "Ramsay spoke of still fornicating with his whore Myranda who it seems curses this castle with her presence still."

"Seldom to my knowledge confined as I am down here. This girl you speak of Myranda comes in here sometimes offering herself to me. She has no love for Ramsay Bolton that one. She offers me all kind of pleasures if I will protect her from him. Curses him for taking that red haired bitch to wife rather than her." Brandon laughed again. "Which would be you my Red Wolf. She has a rotten blackness in her that one not a light as you do Sansa. So I send her on her way and do not pollute myself."

"Sometimes he would let her watch, once he let her touch me as she would and she was not gentle." Sansa saw how Brandon's face darkened with anger at that. "Please I crave no vengeance on her she is cursed enough by being Ramsay's creature. Tell me though you speak of halls of rest, of heavens I presume, do you know how one gets to them?"

"Spirits are here and then are not, I know not the why of it. Think perhaps of your loved ones, those dear to you and that may take you to them Sansa. They will have the answers that you seek for sure, surrounded though by their love the answers might well matter little to you."

"I will think on it, but tell me why do you stay here if it is so easy to go." Sansa smiled and answered for him before he could. "Yes I know you are Brandon the bad, do you fear a hell ser? You have served your House guarding this place for many centuries, how do you know that you are not redeemed? You have treated me most kindly so far." 

"I have no desire now to find out what might happen to my spirit in the beyond, I just rest here, I sometimes get to battle evil spirits that dare to wander into this sacred place." He smiled at her. "Now though I have a beautiful woman to talk to, the gods perhaps have rewarded me for my vigil, what need have I of the Stark's long hall?"

"Would it not perhaps be better than this, you would certainly have one friend there who would sit beside you as we feast. If indeed the spirits of the dead do feast, no one would gainsay you if walked in with an, I hope, beloved daughter of House Stark upon your arm." Sansa knew you did not gain the epithet the Bad by being good. Surely if she spoke for Brandon though there might be forgiveness. Then again she wondered why was she still here at Winterfell. Was it because she had broken guest right when she ordered Petyr's death. He had been revealed as an evil man but she had already known he had killed her Aunt Lysa, had her poison Jon Arryn also and helped him conceal the fact from the Lords Declarant. Was she not in fact a beloved daughter of House Stark for her own sins, Was she left here in limbo as a punishment? Then another thought occurred to her. "Brandon what other recent new ghosts have you encountered in this place?"

"There have been several with all the recent turmoil is there anyone in particular you would know of?"

"A short slight man wearing a mocking bird pin, he would be dressed like a Southron, having a small beard and his hair short and black but with grey above his ears." Sansa almost prayed the answer would be no for she had no wish to speak again to that ghost. "Lord Petyr Baelish is his name."

"That one, I saw him oft enough alive once you had your mothers statue placed in here, lighting candles to her looking at her so mournfully but sometimes with an evil twisted smile. As if he had triumphed in some way over her. Only once Sansa did I see his spirit, he ran in here begging me for aid from something that pursued him. When I shook him off telling him he was nought to me he ran on through that wall. Something followed but it was but a shadow to me."

"The Stranger perhaps, perhaps that god of the seven has no interest in the spirits of those who follow the old gods. Petyr started this whole war, has killed many thousands by his actions. He is in hell then and will not trouble me." Sansa found she felt no concern at Petyr's damnation, she wondered if the 'triumph' over Catelyn was Petyr thinking that he had her daughters love. "And the other new ghosts you have encountered Brandon, tell me of them?"

"Humph, there is the mad king, for he tells me he is a king. He comes in here from time to time, asking me if I have seen his wife and daughter. Ranting about how he wishes to ask their pardon. Also if I have seen a Red Witch whose heart he wishes to rip out. When I tell him I have seen none of them he pulls at his hair and screams at me and runs out." Brandon paused thinking before he added. "A curious thing is his armour, he wears on it the sigil of House Durrandon, or a variant of same as it sits within a flaming heart. I tell you I know not of any time when the Stormlander's invaded our North, when such a king might have died at Winterfell."

"You speak Brandon of the ghost of King Stannis Baratheon, who fell in battle before this castle trying to capture it from the Bolton's." Sansa knew full well Stannis's sins and was not surprised that his was a tormented ghost. "He fell into the worship of R'hllor the Lord of Light, who demands sacrifices be given to the fire. Or at least so his priests and priestesses claim, we heard that in despair trapped in the snow he gave his daughter, a sweet kind girl, to the fires. His wife maddened by remorse hanged herself. The Red Witch is Melisandre the red priestess who persuaded him the sacrifice would win him victory. It did not."

"Mad fool, his daughter will be in a better place, he is an evil spirit then, I will not tolerate him here again. There is another, a fat woman with a new born babe, some death in child bed I expect. She wears the Bolton sigil and when I try to speak to her she hastens away without a word."

"Oh gods that must be Lady Walda Frey who married Roose Bolton." Sansa sighed to think of that poor soul not being at peace. "When she bore Lord Bolton a true born son Ramsay slew his father, then fed his good mother and the new born babe to his hounds alive. Poor lady and babe to be here still. When she see's you she sees a Stark and fears you because...." 

"Aye even down here I have heard of the Red Wedding, let her suffer then...."

Sansa moved one of her hands atop his to stay him. "I know of no harm this lady ever did our House Brandon. If she comes down into these crypts while I am here hide yourself, then I will speak with her and try to ease her souls passage from this place."

"Why bother for a Frey even if...."

"For the sake of kindness and mercy, what other reasons do I need. Also though I do not know what afterlife a babe might have, what crime has it committed to be stuck here because his mother is to traumatized to pass over to a better place."

"Why are you here sweet lady." Brandon asked her with a look on his face almost in awe of this goodness he had not encountered for so many a long year. "You do not belong in this darkness, go forth from here into the light where you belong."

Sansa laughed. "For a man who has a beautiful woman to speak to for the first time in centuries you seem most keen to be rid of her ser."

"It is because Sansa if you stay here with me to long you will end up leading me by the hand from this darkness. Willing to risk whatever fate the old gods have in store for me, in the faint hope I might be allowed to share your company forever." Brandon as gently as he had ever acted raised one of her delicate hands in his strong powerful fingers and brought it to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "Have the old gods sent you to tempt me to my doom with your goodness. Are you a siren Lady Stark?"

"I know not but I doubt it is their intent in leaving me here." When he released her hand she placed it back in her lap. "As I have said when I was a child I was told the tales of your life were not fit for my ears. Later unlike my sister I craved romantic tales to read rather than true histories, tell me your life's story please Brandon. To pass the time for I take it if I wish for a bolt of cloth, embroidery silks and needles, or a high harp they will not appear."

"If we could wish such things I'd have a barrel of ale beside me and a tankard in my hand." Brandon grinned as he said that revealing worn chipped teeth. "Mine is a grim tale lady and you might not like me by the end of it. Though perhaps as you say many centuries here may have mellowed me. If you do intend to bide with me here tell me your tale first, for I have heard but fragments of the story of this War of Five Kings and how the Bolton's came to infest my castle. Speak to me of your life if you will stay here."

"My tale is that of a lady and it might bore you, though there are battles and most dreadful things in it." Sansa sat there for a moment and composed herself. "Well if we are to be here together for a time or even indeed till Winterfell is no more let me begin. I was born in the year two hundred and eighty five after the conquest. My mother says that I was a lady at three......"

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Finally someone gets to kill someone in one of my fan fictions. And its with the murder stroke bonus points for Brandon.
> 
> Until GRRM writes Winter is Coming giving us the North's history I have no idea why he was Brandon the Bad.
> 
> Gods I hope that trailer was just to give house Stark fans a wiggins. some Starks must live 'A Time for Wolves.' 
> 
> Things are also a bit thin on the Northern afterlife, I therefore made up a nice one with feasting halls.


End file.
